The Internet and its enabling protocols are well known. This includes support for so-called broadcast packets (such as, but not limited to, emergency notifications, system control packets, and so forth). In particular, the present Internet Protocol provides a mechanism whereby, for example, a Home Agent can send a given packet to a number of different recipients (hence the moniker “broadcast”).
At present, a Mobile Internet Protocol node that wishes to receive broadcast packets from its Home Agent will send a Mobile Internet Protocol registration request message with its “B” bit set. The serving Packet Data Serving Node for this Mobile Internet Protocol node will then forward this request to the Home Agent and service the Home Agent's response as well. Later, when a broadcast packet arrives at the Home Agent for further distribution, the latter will encapsulate the broadcast packet in a unicast datagram and tunnel this encapsulated datagram to the Packet Data Serving Node. The Packet Data Serving Node will then decapsulate this message and forward it to the Mobile Internet Protocol node.
If, however, multiple Mobile Internet Protocol nodes as are served by this Packet Data Serving Node/Home Agent pair request the forwarding of broadcast packets, the same broadcast packet will be sent over several different Mobile Internet Protocol tunnels from the Home Agent to the Packet Data Serving Node. In turn, each of these identical but individual broadcast packets is then forwarded on by the Packet Data Serving Node to the respective Mobile Internet Protocol nodes.
Such an approach, while successful in the sense of accomplishing the desired end result of facilitating the distribution of broadcast packets, nevertheless leaves much to be desired. In particular, this approach tends to result in a considerable volume of traffic between the Home Agent and Packet Data Serving Node.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.